We’ve long seen the implications of a world in which just about anyone, from practically anywhere in the world, can broadcast messages and videos to everyone else. Many of the everyday effects are positive. There is no doubt that it is easier to feel more connected to personal interests and far-flung friends because of online services like Twitter and Facebook.

Wednesday brought the latest reminder – a horrible reminder – of this. The man who is thought to have shot two journalists in Virginia turned to Twitter and Facebook to show a video of the shooting. While those companies quickly suspended the accounts with the videos, the images already were bouncing around the Internet, powered by people who had shared the accounts with followers and friends.

As Farhad Manjoo writes, “The horror was the dawning realization, as the video spread across the networks, that the killer had anticipated the moves – that he had been counting on the mechanics of these services and on our inability to resist passing on what he had posted."

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